This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 

^M.p  AlH  2  1  1933 
m  2  1  1933 


APR  1  «  1927 


DEC  3      ^^34 


4^ 


193f 


OUN  1  \     "^ 

ilk-  . 
JAN    2  3    ..v., 

MOV  4     1929 


^R  2  4  1931 


Form  L-9-15)i(-8,'24 


OCT  2  3  1961 


m 


6   ^^® 


R-T''  ' 


THE  MORALS  OF 

ECONOMIC 

INTERNATIONALISM 


BY 


J.  A.  HOBSON 

AUTHOR  OF  "the  INDUSTRIAL  SYSTEM,"  "tHE  EVOLUTION 
OF  MODERN  CAPITALISM,"  "wORK  AND  WEALTH,"  ETC. 


BOSTON    AND    NEW    YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

^t)e  C^ibec^iDe  pce^jj  CambriDge 

1920 


5  3 1  «,  0 


COPYRIGHT,    1920,    BY  THE   REGENTS   OF  THE 
UNIVERSITY   OK   CALIFORNIA 

ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 


H  GS 


BARBARA  WEINSTOCK 

LECTURES  ON  THE  MORALS 

OF  TRADE 

This  series  will  contain  essays  by 
representative  scholaurs  and  men  of 
affairs  dealing  with  the  various  phases 
of  the  moral  law  in  its  bearing  on 
business  life  under  the  new  economic 
order,  first  delivered  at  the  University 
of  California  on  the  Weinstock  founda- 
tion. 


THE   MORALS   OF 

ECONOMIC 

INTERNATIONALISM 

IT  ought  not  to  be  the  case  that  there 
is  one  standard  of  morality  for  in- 
dividuals in  their  relations  with  one 
another,  a  different  and  a  slighter  stand- 
ard for  corporations,  and  a  third  and  still 
slighter  standard  for  nations.  For,  after 
all,  what  are  corporations  but  groupings 
of  individuals  for  ends  which  in  the  last 
resort  are  personal  ends?  And  what  are 
nations  but  wider,  closer,  and  more  last- 
ing unions  of  persons  for  the  attainment 
of  the  end  they  have  in  common,  i.e., 
the  commonwealth.   Yet  we   are  well 


2  THE  MORALS  OF 

aware  that  the  accepted  and  operative 
standards  of  morality  differ  widely  in  the 
three  spheres  of  conduct.  If  a  soul  is  im- 
puted at  all  to  a  corporation,  it  is  a  leather 
soul,  not  easily  penetrable  to  the  prob- 
ings  of  pity  or  compunction,  and  emit- 
ting much  less  of  the  milk  of  human 
kindness  than  do  the  separate  souls  of 
its  directors  and  stockholders  in  their 
ordinary  human  relations.  There  is  a 
sharp  recognition  of  this  inferior  moral 
make-up  of  a  corporation  in  the  attitude 
of  ordinary  men  and  women,  who,  scru- 
pulously honest  in  their  dealings  with 
one  another,  slide  almost  unconsciously 
to  an  altogether  lower  level  in  dealing 
with  a  railroad  or  insurance  company. 
This  attitude  is  due,  no  doubt,  partly  to 


INTERNATIONALISM  3 

a  resentment  of  the  oppressive  power 
which  great  corporations  are  believed  to 
exercise,  evoking  a  desire  "to  get  a  bit 
of  your  own  back";  partly  to  a  feeling 
that  any  slight  injury  to,  or  even  fraud 
perpetrated  on,  a  corporation  will  be  so 
distributed  as  to  inflict  no  appreciable 
harm  on  any  individual  stockholder. 
But  largely  it  is  the  result  of  a  failure  to 
envisage  a  corporation  as  a  moral  being 
at  all,  to  whom  one  owes  obligations. 
Corporations  are  in  a  sense  moral  mon- 
sters; we  say  they  behave  as  such  and  we 
are  disposed  to  treat  them  as  such. 

The  standard  of  international  mo* 
rality,  particularly  in  matters  of  commer*- 
cial  intercourse,  is  on  a  still  lower  level. 
If,  indeed,  one  were  to  press  the  theo- 


4  THE  MORALS  OF 

retic  issue,  whether  a  state  or  a  nation  is 
a  morally  independent  being,  or  whether 
it  is  in  some  sense  or  degree  a  member 
of  what  may  be  called  an  incipient  so- 
ciety of  states  or  nations,  nearly  every 
one  would  sustain  the  latter  view.  We 
should  be  reminded  that  there  was  such 
a  thing  as  international  law,  however  im- 
perfect its  sanctions  might  be,  and  that 
treaties,  alliances,  and  other  agreements 
between  nations  implied  the  recognition 
of  some  moral  obligation.  How  weak 
this  interstate  morality  is  appears  not 
merely  from  the  fact  that  under  strong 
temptation  governments  repudiate  their 
most  express  and  solemn  agreements — 
to  that  temptation  individuals  sometimes 
yield  in  their  dealings  with  one  another 


INTERNATIONALISM  5 

—  but  also  from  the  nature  of  the  de- 
fence which  they  make  of  such  repudi- 
ation. The  plea  of  state  necessity,  which 
Germany  made  for  the  violation  of  the 
neutrality  of  Belgium,  and  which  was 
stretched  to  cover  the  brutal  mishan- 
dling of  the  Belgian  people,  is  unfortu- 
nately but  an  extreme  instance  of  conduct 
to  which  every  state  has  had  recourse 
at  times,  and — still  more  significant  — 
which  every  state  defends  by  adduc- 
ing the  same  maxim,  ^*- salus  reipublica 
suprema  lex'' 

Here  is  the  sharpest  distinction  be- 
tween individual  and  national  morality. 
There  are  certain  deeds  which  a  good 
and  honorable  man  would  not  do  even  to 
save  his  life ;  there  are  no  deeds,  which 


6  THE  MORALS  OF  ' 

it  is  admitted  that  a  statesman,  acting 
on  behalf  of  his  country,  may  not  do  to 
save  that  country.  It  is  foolish  to  try  to 
shirk  this  disconcerting  admission.  The 
Machiavellian  doctrine  of  "  reason  of 
state**  is,  in  the  last  resort,  the  accepted 
standard  of  national  conduct.  This  does 
not  signify  that  a  nation  and  its  govern- 
ment admit  no  obligation  to  fulfil  their 
promises,  or  even  voluntarily  to  perform 
good  offices  for  other  nations,  but  that 
there  is  always  implied  the  reservation 
that  the  necessity,  or,  shall  we  say,  the 
vital  interests,  of  the  nation  override, 
cancel,  and  nullify  all  such  obligations. 
And  when  "necessity"  is  stretched  to 
cover  any  vital  interest  or  urgent  need, 
it  is  easy  to  recognize  on  what  a  slip- 


INTERNATIONALISM  7 

pery  slope  such  international  morality 
reposes. 

International  morality  is  impaired, 
however,  not  only  by  this  feeble  sense  of 
mutual  obligation,  but  by  the  still  more 
injurious  assumption  of  conflicting  inter- 
ests between  nations.  Nations  are  repre- 
sented not  merely  as  self-centered,  inde- 
pendent moral  systems,  but  as,  in  some 
degree,  mutually  repellent  systems.  This 
notion  is  partly  the  product  of  the  false 
patriotic  teaching  of  our  schools  and 
press,  which  seek  to  feed  our  sense  of 
national  unity  more  upon  exclusive  than 
inclusive  sentiments.  Nations  are  rep- 
resented as  rivals  and  competitors  in 
some  struggle  for  power,  or  greatness, 
or  prestige,  instead  of  as  cooperators  in 


8  THE  MORALS  OF 

the  general  advance  of  civilization.  This 
presumption  of  opposing  interests  is,  of 
course,  more  strongly  marked  in  the 
presentation  of  commercial  relations  than 
in  any  other.  Putting  the  issue  roughly, 
but  with  substantial  truth,  the  generally 
accepted  image  of  international  trade  is 
one  in  which  a  number  of  trading  com- 
munities, as,  for  instance,  the  United 
States,  Britain,  Germany,  France,  Japan, 
etc.,  are  engaged  in  striving,  each  to  win 
for  itself,  and  at  the  expense  of  the  others, 
the  largest  possible  share  of  a  strictly 
limited  objective — the  world  market. 

Now  there  are  three  fatal  flaws  in  this 
image.  First  comes  the  false  presentation 
of  the  United  States,  Britain,  Germany, 
and  other  political  beings  in  the  capac- 


INTERNATIONALISM  9 

ity  of  trading  firms.  So  far  as  world  or 
international  trade  is  rightly  presented 
as  a  competitive  process,  that  compe- 
tition takes  place,  not  between  America, 
Britain,  Germany,  but  between  a  num- 
ber of  separate  American,  British,  Ger- 
man firms.  The  immediate  interests  of 
these  firms  are  not  directed  along  politi- 
cal lines.  Generally  speaking,  the  closer 
rivalry  is  between  firms  belonging  to  the 
same  nation  and  conducting  their  busi- 
ness upon  closely  similar  conditions. 
One  Lancashire  cotton  exporter  com- 
petes much  more  closely  with  other 
Lancashire  exporters  than  he  does  with 
German,  American,  or  Japanese  export- 
ers of  similar  goods.  So  it  is  everywhere, 
save  in  the  exceptional  times  andcircum- 


lo  THE  MORALS  OF 

stances  in  which  governments  them- 
selves take  over  the  regulation  and 
conduct  of  foreign  trade. 

For  certain  purposes  it  is,  no  doubt, 
convenient  to  have  balances  and  analyses 
of  foreign  trade  presented  separately,  so 
as  to  show  the  volumes  and  values  of 
different  goods  which  pass  from  the 
members  of  one  nation  to  those  of  an- 
other. But  the  imputation  of  political 
significance  to  these  statistics,  taken 
either  in  aggregate  or  in  relation  to 
separate  countries,  as  if  they  were  them- 
selves indices  of  public  gain  or  public 
loss,  has  most  injurious  reactions  upon 
the  intelligent  understanding  of  com- 
merce. 

The  second  flaw  is  the  assumption  of 


INTERNATIONALISM  1 1 

a  limited  amount  of  market,  which  car- 
ries with  it  the  assumption  that  the 
groups  of  traders,  gathered  under  their 
national  flags,  are  engaged  in  a  conflict 
in  which  they  are  entitled  to  embroil 
their  governments.  By  tariff  bargaining 
and  by  all  sorts  of  diplomatic  weapons 
each  government  is  called  upon  to  assist 
its  nationals  and  to  cripple  or  exclude 
the  nationals  of  other  states.  Now  it  is 
untrue  that  the  world  market  is  strictly 
limited,  with  the  consequence  that  every 
advance  of  one  group  of  traders  is  at 
the  expense  of  another  group.  The  world 
market  is  indefinitely  expansible,  and  is 
always  expanding;  and  commercial  ex- 
perience shows  that  the  rapid  expansion 
of  the  overseas  trade  of  one  country  does 


12  THE  MORALS  OF 

not  preclude  the  expansion  of  trade  of 
other  countries.  I  do  not,  of  course,  deny 
that  at  a  particular  time  and  in  relation  to 
some  particular  lucrative  opportunity, 
genuine  clashes  of  interests  may  arise. 
But,  envisaging  the  whole  range  of  for- 
eign commerce,  one  feels  that  the  image 
of  it  as  a  prize  which  governments  can, 
and  ought  to  win  for  their  traders  at 
the  expense  of  the  traders  supported  by 
other  governments,  has  been  a  most  fer- 
tile source  of  international  misunder- 
standing. 

Perhaps  the  worst  of  the  three  falla- 
cies, and  in  a  sense  the  deepest-rooted, 
is  the  concept  of  export  trade  as  of  more 
value  than  import  trade.  This  is  often 
traced  back  to  the  time  when  govern- 


INTERNATIONALISM  13 

ments  deemed  it  desirable  to  accumulate 
in  their  countries  treasures  of  gold  and 
silver  and  to  this  end  encouraged  the 
sale  of  goods  abroad  and  discouraged  the 
payment  for  them  in  foreign  goods. 
There  are,  however,  modern  supporters 
of  the  assumption  that  it  is  more  im- 
portant to  sell  than  to  buy,  although 
the  money  received  for  sales  has  no  other 
significance  or  value  than  its  power  to 
buy,  and  trade  can  only  be  imaged  truly 
as  an  exchange  of  goods  for  goods  in 
which  the  processes  of  selling  and  of 
buying  are  complementary. 

The  economic  explanation  of  the 
double  falsehood  of  dividing  buying 
from  selling  and  of  imputing  a  higher 
value  to  the  latter  process,  lies  beyond 


14  THE  MORALS  OF 

the  scope  of  this  address.  But  the  inju- 
ries resulting  from  the  superior  pressure 
upon  governments  of  organized  bodies 
of  producers  and  merchants  who  have 
things  to  sell,  to  the  detriment  of  the 
consuming  public  who  have  only  buy- 
ing needs,  are  too  grave  matters  to  be 
neglected  here.  It  is  not  too  much  to 
say  that,  if  the  interests  of  consumers 
and  the  interests  of  producers  weighed 
equally  in  the  eyes  of  governments,  as 
they  should,  the  strongest  of  all  obsta- 
cles to  a  peaceful,  harmonious  society 
'  of  nations  would  be  overcome.  For  the 
suspicions,  jealousies,  and  hostilities  of 
nations  are  inspired  more  by  the  tend- 
ency of  groups  of  producers  to  mis- 
represent their  private  interests   as  the 


INTERNATIONALISM  1 5 

good  of  their  respective  countries  than 
by  any  other  single  circumstance. 

This  analysis  has  seemed  necessary 
in  order  to  clear  away  the  intellectual 
and  moral  fogs  which  prevent  a  true 
realization  of  the  economic,  and  there- 
fore the  moral,  interdependence  of  na- 
tions. For  every  bond  of  economic  in- 
terest involves  moral  obligation  also. 
If  it  is  true  that  the  fabric  of  commer- 
cial relations  is  all  the  time  being  knit 
closer  between  the  different  peoples  of 
the  earth,  then  the  moral  isolation  and 
the  antagonism  which  earlier  statecraft 
inculcated,  and  which  still  obsess  so 
many  minds,  must  be  dissipated  and  give 
place  to  active  sentiments  of  human  co- 
operation. 


i6  THE  MORALS  OF 

There  were,  indeed,  those  who 
thought  that  already  the  web  of  com- 
merce and  finance  had  been  woven 
strong  enough  to  save  nations  from  the 
calamity  of  war.  Their  miscalculation 
arose  from  underestimating  the  power 
over  the  mind  and  the  passions  of  that 
false  image  of  trade.  But  because  the 
modern  internationalism  of  commerce 
and  finance  did  not  prove  strong  enough 
to  stem  the  full  and  sudden  tide  of  war 
passions  fed  from  the  barbarous  tradi- 
tions of  a  dateless  past,  we  ought  not  to 
disparage  the  potentiality  of  this  inter- 
nationalism as  the  foundation  of  a  new 
and  better  world  order.  For,  though 
those  bonds  of  common  interest  broke 
under  the  strain  of  war,  the  confusion 


INTERNATIONALISM  1 7 

in  which  we  find  ourselves  without  them 
is  itself  a  terrible  testimony  to  their 
value.  The  enforced  sundering  of  ordi- 
nary trade  relations  between  members 
of  different  countries  has  taught  two 
clear  lessons.  The  first  is  this:  that 
hardly  any  civilized  nation  is  or  can  be 
economically  independent  in  respect  to 
essential  supplies  or  industries.  There  is 
no  European  country  that  does  not  rely 
for  the  subsistence  of  its  inhabitants  upon 
supplies  of  goods  and  raw  materials  from 
foreign  lands,  mostly  from  countries  out- 
side the  European  continent.  While 
Britain  both  leaned  more  heavily  upon 
other  countries  and  contributed  most  to 
other  countries  from  her  surplus  prod- 
uce, every  other  country,  in  larger  or 


1 8  THE  MORALS  OF 

less  degree  —  great  countries  such  as 
France,  Germany,  Austria,  Italy,  little 
ones  like  Belgium,  Holland,  Switzer- 
land, Scandinavia,  and  Denmark  —  were 
increasingly  dependent  upon  outside 
sources  for  their  livelihood.  It  is  true 
that  there  remained  a  very  few  great 
backward  countries,  such  as  Russia  and 
China,  where  a  life  of  economic  isola- 
tion was  possible  had  they  been  willing 
to  dispense  with  the  higher  products  of 
civilized  industry  and  with  the  fertiliz- 
ing streams  of  capital  without  which 
progress  is  impossible.  No  civilized  Eu- 
ropean country  was  self-sufficing  in  the 
vital  factors  of  a  productive  and  pro- 
gressive civilization — food,  raw  mate- 
rials, machinery,  fuel,  transport,  finance. 


INTERNATIONALISM  1 9 

and  adequate  supplies  of  skilled  labor. 
The  services  which  countries  near  or 
distant  rendered  to  one  another  were  be- 
coming constantly  more  numerous,  more 
complex,  and  more  urgent.  The  obstruc- 
tions and  stoppages  of  war  has  driven 
home  the  lesson  painfully  to  the  inhabi- 
tants of  every  European  country,  bellig- 
erent or  neutral.  What  lesson?  That  we 
have  erred  in  permitting  ourselves  to 
grow  dependent  on  the  industry,  good- 
will, and  intercourse  of  other  nations,  and 
that  we  should  endeavor  to  hark  back  to 
an  earlier  economic  state  of  national  in- 
dependence ?  Well,  there  are  even  in 
Britain  rhetorical  politicians  who  speak 
of  the  necessity  of  retaining  all  "key" 
or  "  essential "  industries  within  their  na- 


20  THE  MORALS  OF 

tional  control  —  who  propose  to  reverse 
the  tide  of  social  evolution  by  some 
flimsy  apparatus  of  tariffs  and  subsidies. 
This  is  impossible.  The  war  has  left  the 
European  peoples,  one  and  all,  more 
than  ever  dependent  for  their  economic 
livelihood  upon  one  another,  and  upon 
the  material  resources  and  labor  of  other 
continents. 

The  second  lesson  is  that,  other  things 
equal,  it  is  the  most  highly  civilized  and 
highly  developed  countries  that  are  the 
most  dependent  upon  others.  In  a  word, 
there  is  a  presumption  that  economic 
internationalism  is  an  essential  feature 
of  civilization. 

You  will  observe  that  so  far  I  have 
made  no  mention  of  America.  And  yet 


INTERNATIONALISM  21 

all  that  I  have  been  saying  is,  in  a  sense, 
introductory  to  the  unique  problem  pre- 
sented by  this  country.  America  is  the 
only  civilized  country  in  the  world  that 
is  virtually  self-sufficing  as  regards  the 
primary  requirements  of  her  economic 
life.  Her  soil  can  and  does  supply  nearly 
all  her  essential  foods,  her  natural  re- 
sources include  the  materials  of  her 
great  textile,  metal,  and  other  basic  in- 
dustries, the  heat,  light,  electricity,  and 
other  forms  of  natural  energy  which 
satisfy  her  national  needs.  She  has  access 
to  skilled  and  unskilled  labor  sufficient 
to  develop  and  utilize  all  these  natural 
resources.  Most  of  her  pre-war  imports 
might  be  placed  under  four  heads :  articles 
of  luxury  and  taste  in  dress,  jewelry,  etc. ; 


22  THE  MORALS  OF 

certain  chemical  and  other  scientific 
products ;  supplementary  supplies  of  some 
foods  and  materials,  from  other  countries 
of  the  American  continent,  for  manu- 
factures and  export  trade ;  and  a  number 
of  tropical  products,  almost  all  of  sub- 
sidiary significance  in  the  production 
and  consumption  of  the  American  peo- 
ple. This  slight  dependence  upon  for- 
eign countries  has  been  considerably 
reduced  as  the  result  of  war  exigency. 
The  art  products  of  France  and  Italy, 
the  fine  textile  goods  from  Britain,  the 
dye-stuff's,  drugs,  and  scientific  instru- 
ments from  Germany  —  in  a  word,  the 
great  bulk  of  the  imports  from  Europe, 
have  either  been  cut  out  of  American 
consumption    or    have   been    displaced. 


INTERNATIONALISM  23 

temporarily,  at  any  rate,  by  home  prod- 
ucts. For  several  generations  the  main 
dependence  of  America  upon  Europe 
and  particularly  upon  Britain  was  for 
capital  to  supplement  home  savings  that 
she  might  make  use  of  the  stream  of  im- 
migrant labor  in  the  development  of  her 
great  continent.  This  dependence  upon 
European  capital,  of  greatly  diminishing 
importance  during  the  last  three  decades 
has,  of  course,  now  been  reversed,  and 
the  principal  European  countries  are 
heavy  debtors  to  the  United  States. 

One  other  important  economic  lesson 
war  experience  has  taught,  viz.,  the  vast 
capacity  for  increased  productivity  which 
every  industrial  nation  possesses,  and 
America  especially,  in  better  organiza- 


24  THE  MORALS  OF 

tion  and  fuller  utilization  of  natural  and 
human  resources.  It  is  evident  that,  far 
from  the  age  of  great  inventions  and  of 
mechanical  development  drawing  to  a 
close,  we  are  in  the  actual  process  of 
reaching  new  discoveries  in  wealth  pro- 
duction, which  will  make  the  most  fa- 
mous advances  of  the  nineteenth  century 
mean  by  comparison.  But  without  draw- 
ing upon  a  speculative  future,  a  better 
and  more  systematic  application  of  the 
knowledge  which  has  been  already  tested 

—  enlarged  production,  elimination  of 
waste,  and  improved  business  methods 

—  is  clearly  capable  of  doubling  or  tre- 
bling the  output  of  material  wealth  with- 
out involving  any  excessive  strain  upon 
human  effort. 


INTERNATIONALISM  1 5 

Here,  as  in  other  ways,  America 
stands  in  a  place  of  unique  vantage  by- 
reason  of  the  magnitude  and  variety  of 
her  national  resources,  and  the  vigor 
and  enterprise  of  her  people. 

\  It  is  evident  that,  if  any  country  can 
afford  to  stand  alone  in  full  economic 
self-sufficiency,  that  country  is  America. 
It  is  feasible  for  America  to  contract 
within  very  narrow  limits  her  commer- 
cial and  political  relations  with  the  rest 
of  the  world,  or,  if  she  chooses,  to  con- 
fine her  commercial  and  financial  rela- 
tions to  this  continent,  leaving  the  old 
world  to  get  on  by  itself  as  well  as  it  can. 
This  view  is,  indeed,  conformable  with 
the  main  tradition  of  American  history 
up   to   the    close    of  the   last    century.  / 


26  THE  MORALS  OF 

Even  the  Spanish  war,  with  its  sequel 
of  imperialism,  was  but  a  slight  and 
reparable  breach  in  this  tradition.  The 
world  war  seems  at  first  sight  to  have 
plunged  America  deeper  into  the  Eu- 
ropean trough.  But  even  this  more  seri- 
ous committal  is  not  irretrievable.  She 
can  step  back  to  the  doctrine  and  policy 
of 'America  for  Americans'  and  refuse 
any  organic  contact  with  a  troublesome, 
a  quarrelsome  and,  as  it  seems,  a  ruined 
Europe.  America's  economic  status  in 
Europe  is  not  such  as  to  preclude  her 
taking  this  course.  I  may  be  reminded 
that  the  indebtedness  of  Europe  to  Amer- 
ica is  a  solid  economic  bond,  for  it  can- 
not be  presumed  that  America  would 
pursue  the  policy  of  liberalism  so  far  as 


INTERNATIONALISM  27 

to  cancel  this  debt.  But,  large  as  is  this 
credit,  it  need  not  constitute  a  strong  or 
a  lasting  bond  of  commerce,  compelling 
America  to  receive  such  large  imports 
of  goods  from  Europe  as  materially  to 
impair  her  self-sufficiency.  A  large  and 
increasing  part  of  the  interest  and  capital 
of  this  indebtedness  would  be  defrayed 
by  the  expenditure  of  American  travel- 
lers and  residents  in  Europe,  while  the 
importation  of  objects  of  art  and  luxury 
would  not  interfere  appreciably  with 
the  policy  of  economic  nationalism.  If 
America  decides  to  go  no  further  in  this 
business,  it  will  not  be  too  late  to  draw 
out. 

The  choice  before  her  is  momentous. 
So  far  I  have  presented  it  as  an  economic 


28  THE  MORALS  OF 

problem.  It  is  also  quite  evidently  a 
political  and  moral  problem  of  the  first 
significance,  for  economic  national  self- 
sufficiency  is  a  phase  of  political  inde- 
pendence. But  business  and  politics  alike 
belong  to  the  wider  art  of  human  con- 
duct ;  and  the  choice  before  America  is 
primarily  a  moral  choice. 

By  saying  this  I  do  not  wish  to  ap- 
pear to  prejudge  the  issue.  I  have  always 
felt  that  a  stronger  case  could  be  made 
for  the  political  and  economic  isolation 
of  America  than  for  that  of  any  other 
country,  partly  because,  as  I  have  said, 
she  has  within  her  political  domain  all 
the  resources  of  national  well-being; 
partly,  also,  because  it  is  of  supreme  im- 
portance that  the  great  experiment  of 


INTERNATIONALISM  29 

democracy  should  not  be  unduly  ham- 
pered by  excessive  inpourings  of  ill-as- 
similable foreign  blood, and  by  dangerous 
contacts  with  obsolete  or  inapplicable 
European  institutions.  As  an  economist, 
steeped  in  the  principles  of  Cobden  and 
his  British  school  of  liberals,  my  pre- 
dilections (prejudices  if  you  will)  have 
always  been  in  favor  of  the  freest  possi- 
ble movement,  alike  of  trade  and  per- 
sons, and  against  fiscal  protection  and 
immigrant  restrictions.  But,  when  con- 
fronted with  the  special  situation  of 
America,  I  have  recognized  that  a  rea- 
soned argument  could  be  addressed  to 
prove  that  the  economy  of  national  se- 
curity and  progress  for  this  country  lay 
along  the  lines  of  political,  economic 


30  THE  MORALS  OF 

and  defensive  self-containedness.  I  am 
convinced  that  many  must  be  led  to 
support  this  policy,  not  on  grounds  of 
selfishness,  because  they  desire  to  con- 
serve for  America  alone  her  great  oppor- 
tunities, and  not  mainly  from  fear,  lest 
America  should  be  embroiled  again  in 
the  dangerous  quarrels  of  distant  Eu- 
ropean nations,  but  because  they  are 
animated  by  that  pure  desire,  which  has 
inspired  so  many  generations  of  high- 
minded  Americans,  that  American  de- 
mocracy should  grow  to  its  full  stature 
by  its  own  unaided  efforts  and  save  the 
world  by  its  example. 

I  wish  to  give  due  respect  to  the 
sincerity  of  this  conviction  the  more 
because  I  wish  to  lay  before  you  some 


INTERNATIONALISM  3 1 

grounds  for  questioning  its  ultimate  va- 
lidity. It  is  no  problem  of  abstract 
politics  or  ethics  with  which  I  here 
confront  your  minds,  but  one  of  con- 
crete and  immediate  urgency.  Distinc- 
tively economic  in  its  substance,  it  brings 
right  into  the  daylight  the  hitherto 
obscure  issue  of  the  duty  of  nations  as 
members  of  an  actual  or  potential  society 
of  nations.  As  a  result  of  the  destruction 
of  war  a  large  part  of  Europe  lies  today 
in  economic  ruin.  By  that  I  do  not  only, 
or  chiefly,  refer  to  the  material  havoc 
wrought  by  the  direct  operations  ot  war 
in  France,  Belgium,  Poland,  Servia,  and 
elsewhere.  I  mean  the  imminent  starva- 
tion which  this  winter  awaits  large  popu- 
lations of  those  and  other  countries,  both 


32  THE  MORALS  OF 

our  allies  and  our  late  enemies,  and  the 
misery  and  anarchy  arising  from  their 
utter  inability  to  resume  the  ordinary 
processes  of  productive  industry.  It  is 
not  only  food  and  clothing  but  raw  ma- 
terials, tools,  machinery,  transport,  and 
fuel  that  are  lacking  over  a  large  part 
of  the  European  continent.  If  they  are 
left  to  their  own  unaided  resources, 
millions  of  these  people,  especially  in 
Russia,  Poland,  Austria,  and  sections  of 
the  late  Turkish  Empire,  will  perish. 
They  cannot  feed  themselves.  The  land 
remains,  but  large  tracts  of  it  have  been 
untilled;  large  numbers  of  the  peasantry 
have  fallen  in  the  war,  or  are  wander- 
ing as  disbanded  soldiers,  far  from  home ; 
the  women  and  the  aged  and  the  chil- 


INTERNATIONALISM  33 

dren,  underfed  and  broken  in  health  and 
spirit,  are  utterly  unequal  to  the  task  of 
growing  the  food  for  their  livelihood. 
The  factories  and  workshops  are  idle  or 
are  ill-equipped,  for  materials,  tools,  and 
fuel  are  everywhere  lacking;  unemploy- 
ment holds  large  industrial  populations 
in  destitution  and  despair.  Even  where 
plant  and  materials  are  present,  the  physi- 
cal strength  of  the  workers  is  so  let 
down  that  efficient  productivity  is  im- 
possible. Even  in  countries  that  are  not 
war-broken,  the  blockade,  and  the  long 
stoppage  of  normal  commerce,  have 
caused  great  scarcity  of  many  important 
foods  and  materials,  and  famine  prices 
bring  grievous  suffering  to  the  poorer 
classes.    Britain  alone  among  the  bellig- 


34  THE  MORALS  OF 

erent  countries  is  not  in  immediate  dis- 
tress, but  only  because  she  has  had  larger 
outside  resources  and  larger  borrowing 
powers  on  which  to  draw.  Even  the  few 
neutral  nations  which  are  said  to  have 
profited  by  war  are  severely  crippled  by 
the  lack  of  some  essentials  of  their  eco- 
nomic life. 

All  in  different  degrees  are  economic 
victims  of  the  havoc  and  the  waste  of 
war.  It  is  not  Central  Europe  only,  to- 
gether with  large  parts  of  the  Balkans, 
of  Russia,  and  of  Eastern  Asia,  that  is 
in  this  evil  plight.  Europe  as  a  whole 
is  unprovided  with  the  foodstuffs  with 
which  to  feed  its  population  and  the 
raw  materials  with  which  to  furnish 
employment.    If  there  were  prevailing 


INTERNATIONALISM  3  5 

among  them  the  best  of  wills  and  of 
cooperative  arrangements,  the  European 
peoples  could  not  keep  themselves  alive 
this  winter  and  make  any  substantial 
advance  towards  reparation  of  the  damage 
of  war  and  industrial  recovery.  If  hu- 
man cooperation  is  to  save  these  weak 
and  desperate  peoples,  it  must  be  a  co- 
operation of  more  than  the  nations  of  Eu- 
rope. Only  by  the  better  provided  na- 
tions of  the  world  coming  to  the  rescue 
can  the  worse-provided  nations  survive 
and  recover.  It  would  be  foolish  to  mince 
words  in  so  grave  an  issue.  We  are  all 
acquainted  with  the  main  facts  of  the 
world  situation  and  are  familiar  with  the 
place  which  America  occupies  in  it  as 
the  chief  repository  of  those  surpluses 


26  THE  MORALS  OF 

of  foods,  materials,  and  manufactured 
goods  which  Europe  needs  so  sorely. 
The  term  *  surplus'  is,  of  course,  some- 
what deceptive.  Surplus  depends  largely 
on  home  consumption,  itself  an  elastic 
condition.  But  for  practical  purposes 
we  m^y  take  the  exportable  surplus  to 
mean  the  product  which  remains  for 
sale  abroad  after  the  normal  wants  of 
the  home  population  are  supplied.  It 
might  mean  something  more,  viz.,  that 
the  home  population  would  voluntarily 
keep  down  or  reduce  their  consumption, 
in  order  that  more  might  be  available 
for  export.  The  American  people  actu- 
ally did  exercise  this  self-denying  ordi- 
nance to  an  appreciable  extent,  in  order  to 
help  win  the  war.   Are  they  willing  to  do 


INTERNATIONALISM  37 

the  same  in  order  to  help  the  world  in 
a  distress  as  dire  as  war  itself? 

It  may  be  said,  perhaps  truly,  that  this 
presumes  that  America  is  in  the  peace 
as  much  as  she  was  in  the  war,  that  she 
has  decided  to  link  her  destiny  closely 
and  lastingly  with  that  of  Europe,  that 
she  definitely  accepts  a  proffered  place 
as  a  member  of  the  society  of  nations, 
and  under  circumstances  which  make 
an  immediate  call  upon  her  economic 
and  financial  resources  in  a  manner  in 
which  there  can  be  no  direct  reciprocity. 

Now  it  may  reasonably  be  urged  that 
America  is  not  prepared  for  such  a  com- 
mittal, that  such  obligations  as  she  under- 
took, as  an  associated  power,  in  the  con- 
duct  of  the   war,  terminate  with   the 

53180 


38  THE  MORALS  OF 

making  of  peace ;  and  that,  as  regards 
the  future  structure  of  international  re- 
lations, she  proposes  to  preserve  full 
freedom  to  cooperate  with  other  nations, 
or  to  stand  alone,  according  to  her  esti- 
mate of  each  occasion. 

It  is  here  convenient  to  treat  sepa- 
rately two  issues  which  are  none  the  less 
closely  related,  viz.,  the  issue  of  inter- 
national cooperation  for  the  immediate 
work  of  the  salvage  and  restoration  of 
Europe,  and  the  issue  of  a  permanent 
cooperation  or  agreement  for  the  equi- 
table use  of  the  economic  resources  of 
the  world.  The  urgency  for  Europe  of 
the  first  issue  has  been  already  indicated. 
If  the  weaker  European  nations  are  left 
to  the  ordinary  play  of  economic  laws 


INTERNATIONALISM  39 

for  the  supplies  they  need,  they  must 
lapse  into  starvation  and  social  anarchy. 
A  lifting  of  the  war  blockades  and  em- 
bargoes hardly  helps  them.  The  formal 
restoration  of  free  commerce  is  little 
better  than  a  mockery  to  those  who  lack 
the  power  to  buy  and  sell.  Free  com- 
merce would  simply  mean  that  Amer- 
ica's surplus,  the  food,  materials,  and 
manufactured  goods  she  has  to  sell 
abroad,  would  be  purchased  exclusively 
by  those  more  prosperous  foreigners  who 
have  the  means  to  pay  in  money,  or  in 
export  goods  available  for  credit  pur- 
poses. Now  the  populations  and  the 
governments  of  these  broken  countries 
have  neither  money  nor  goods  in  hand. 
The  return  of  peace  has  left  them  with 


40  THE  MORALS  OF 

depleted  purses  and  empty  stores.  If  the 
purchase  and  consumption  of  the  avail- 
able surplus  of  foods,  materials,  and 
manufactures  from  America  and  other 
prosperous  countries  is  distributed  ac- 
cording to  the  separate  powers  of  pur- 
chase in  the  European  countries,  the 
countries  and  the  classes  of  population 
which  are  least  in  need  will  get  all, 
those  which  are  most  in  need,  nothing. 
How  can  it  be  otherwise,  if  immediate 
ability  to  pay  is  the  criterion  ?  In  ordi- 
nary times  the  machinery  of  interna- 
tional finance  does  tend  to  distribute 
surplus  stocks  according  to  the  needs  of 
the  different  nations,  for  the  production 
of  the  actual  goods  for  export  trade  with 
which  imports   are  paid  for,   the  true 


INTERNATIONALISM  41 

base  of  credit,  is  continually  proceeding. 
But  the  war  broke  this  machinery  of 
regular  exchange.  It  cannot  be  imme- 
diately restored.  America  or  Argentina 
cannot  sell  their  surplus  wheat  in  the 
ordinary  way  to  Poland,  Austria,  Bel- 
gium and  other  needy  countries,  because, 
largely  for  the  very  lack  of  these  goods 
and  materials,  their  industries  are  not 
operating,  so  that  the  goods  they  should 
produce,  upon  which  credit  would  be 
built,  are  not  forthcoming. 

This  is  one  of  the  most  terrible  of 
the  vicious  circles  in  which  the  war  has 
bound  the  world.  The  weak  nations 
cannot  buy,  because  they  are  not  pro- 
ducing goods  to  sell ;  they  cannot  pro- 
duce, because  they  cannot   buy.   What 


42  THE  MORALS  OF 

are  the  strong  nations,  those  with  sur- 
plus goods,  the  transport,  and  the  credit, 
going  to  do  about  it?  It  is  a  question 
of  emergency  finance  based  on  an  emer- 
gency morality.  The  nations  which  have 
surpluses  to  sell  abroad  must  not  only 
send  the  goods  but  provide  the  credit  to 
pay  for  them  if  they  are  to  reach  the 
peoples  that  need  them  most.  But  how, 
it  is  said,  can  you  expect  the  business 
man  in  America  or  any  other  country 
to  perform  such  an  act  of  charity  ?  How 
can  you  expect  them  to  sell  to  those 
who  have  not  credit  and  cannot  pay,  in- 
stead of  selling  to  those  who  have  credit 
and  can  pay  ?  The  answer  is  sometimes 
stated  thus.  It  is  not  charity  you  are 
asked  to  perform,  but  such  consideration 


INTERNATIONALISM  43 

for  customers  as  a  really  intelligent  sense 
of  self-interest  will  endorse.  We  ask  you 
to  put  up  a  temporary  bridge  over  the 
financial  chasm  in  order  to  afford  time 
for  this  restoration  of  the  ordinary  proc- 
esses of  exchange.  If  the  enfeebled  in- 
dustrial peoples  can  be  furnished  now 
with  foods  and  materials  they  will  set 
to  work,  and  in  the  course  of  time  they 
will  be  able,  out  of  the  product  of  their 
industry,  to  repay  your  advances  and  re- 
establish the  normal  circle  of  exchange. 
In  presenting  this  course  as  a  polic}' 
of  intelligent  self-interest,  I  am  not 
really  disparaging  the  claims  of  human- 
ity or  of  morals.  I  am  merely  maintain- 
ing the  utilitarian  ethics  which  insist 
that  morality,  the  performance  of  human 


/ 


44  THE  MORALS  OF 

obligations,  is  the  best  policy,  that  policy 
which  in  the  long  run  will  yield  the 
fullest  satisfaction  to  social  beings.  If  I 
were  an  American  exporter  in  control 
of  large  amounts  of  food,  it  would  doubt- 
less pay  me  better  personally  at  the  pres- 
ent time  to  sell  it  to  firms  in  European 
countries  which  have  good  credit,  for 
consumption  by  people  who  are  in  no 
great  want.  As  an  individual  business 
man,  I  could  hardly  do  otherwise  with 
any  assurance  of  financial  profit.  I  am 
not  here  presenting  the  issue  as  a  matter 
of  individual  morals.  If  the  surplus  of 
economic  supplies  is  to  be  distributed 
according  to  needs,  on  an  emergency 
credit  basis  adjusted  to  that  end,  it  is 
evident  that  this  can  be  done  only  by 


INTERNATIONALISM  45 

international  cooperation.  This  shifts 
the  moral  problem  from  the  individual 
to  the  nation.  Rich  nations,  or  their 
governments,  are  asked  to  assist  poor 
nations  by  making  an  apportionment  of 
goods  and  credit  which  the  individual 
members  of  the  rich  nations,  the  owners 
of  the  surplus,  would  not  make  upon 
their  own  account.  The  edge  of  this 
issue  should  not  be  blunted.  If  the  people 
and  government  of  America  were  only- 
concerned  to  let  their  individual  citi- 
zens extort  the  highest  prices  they  could 
get  for  their  surplus  in  the  best  markets, 
they  would  let  Central  and  Eastern  Eu- 
rope starve.  If,  however,  they  also  take 
into  account  the  social,  political,  and 
economic  reactions  of  a  starving  Europe 


46  THE  MORALS  OF 

upon  the  future  of  a  world  in  which 
they  will  have  to  live  as  members  of  a 
world  society  which  must  grow  ever 
closer  in  its  physical,  economic,  and 
spiritual  contacts,  they  may  decide  dif- 
ferently. The  issue  arises  in  the  highest 
economic  sphere,  that  of  finance.  Are 
the  nations  and  governments  of  the 
world  sufficiently  alive  to  the  urgency 
of  the  situation  to  enter  into  an  organ- 
ization of  credit  for  the  emergency  use 
of  transport  and  for  the  distribution  of 
foods  and  materials  on  a  basis  of  proved 
needs  ?  The  richer  nations,  in  propor- 
tion to  their  resources,  would  appear  to 
be  called  upon  to  make  a  present  sacri- 
fice for  the  benefit  of  the  poorer  nations 
in  any  such  pooling  of  credit  facilities. 


INTERNATIONALISM  47 

That  risk  of  sacrifice,  however,  need 
not  be  great,  and  need  not  be  felt  at  all 
by  the  individual  members  of  rich  na- 
tions, provided  that  the  hitherto  unused 
resources  of  national  credit  can  be  built 
into  a  strong  structure  of  mutual  sup- 
port. If  America  were  invited  to  find 
adequate  credits  for  Italian  or  Polish 
needs  at  the  present  time,  she  might 
well  hesitate.  But  if  a  consortium  of 
European  governments,  including  Brit- 
ain and  the  richer  neutrals,  were  joint 
guarantors  of  such  advances,  this  co- 
operative basis  might  furnish  the  nec- 
essary confidence.  It  is  not  within  my 
scope  to  discuss  the  various  forms  a  finan- 
cial consortium  might  take;  whether 
America,  as  representative  of  the  credi- 


48  THE  MORALS  OF 

tor  nations,  should  enter  such  a  consor- 
tium, or  should  approach  the  organized 
credit  of  Europe  in  the  capacity  of  a 
friendly  uncle.  It  must  suffice  here  to 
indicate  the  moral  test  which  this  grave 
issue  presents  to  the  nations  regarded  as 
economic  powers. 

Upon  the  policy  adopted  for  this 
emergency  will  doubtless  depend  in  large 
measure  the  whole  future  of  economic 
internationalism.  For  not  only  does  con- 
fidence grow  with  effective  cooperation, 
but  upon  this  post-war  cooperation  be- 
tween nations  for  an  emergency  com- 
merce and  finance,  or  its  rejection,  will 
depend  not  only  America's  future  place 
in  a  world  society  but  the  structure  of  that 
world  society  in  its  essential  character. 


INTERNATIONALISM  49 

For  in  each  great  nation  of  the  world 
the  same  great  choice,  the  same  great 
struggle  of  contending  principles  and 
policies,  is  taking  place.  National  self- 
dependence  or  internationalism  —  that 
is  everywhere  the  issue.  It  is  true  that 
in  no  European  country  can  that  issue 
be  so  sharply  presented  as  in  America. 
For  economic  self-sufficiency  in  a  full 
sense  and,  therefore,  political  isolation, 
is  not  possible  for  any  European  state. 
Even  a  peaceful  and  reviving  Russia 
must  lean  upon  her  more  advanced 
neighbors  for  the  economic  essentials 
of  capital  and  organizing  skill.  But  the 
several  nations  can  strive  to  reduce  their 
interdependence  and  their  national  aid 
to  the  narrowest  dimensions,  and  where 


50  THE  MORALS  OF 

they  cannot  free  themselves  from  ex- 
traneous alliances  they  can  restrict  the 
area  of  economic  dependence  within 
a  chosen  circle.  Britain,  for  example, 
could  set  her  policy  closely  and  consist- 
ently to  make  her  world-wide  empire 
into  a  self-sufficing  system,  and  if,  as  is 
likely,  she  learned  that  even  the  diver- 
sified fifth  of  the  entire  globe  which 
owns  allegiance  to  her  Crown  could  not 
satisfy  all  her  wants,  she  could  eke  out 
this  inadequacy  with  some  carefully  se- 
lected and  purchased  friendships. 

This]  harking  back  to  an  economic 
nationalism  is  a  natural  reaction  of  the 
war,  and  is  fed  by  a  dangerous  and  pre- 
carious peace.  Fear,  greed,  and  suspicion 
prompt  the  victorious  nations  to  guard 


INTERNATIONALISM  5 1 

their  gains  by  reverting  to  a  close  na- 
tionalism or  a  ringed  alliance ;  humilia- 
tion, without  humility,  the  bitter  pain 
of  thwarted  ambitions,  resentment  at 
their  punishment,  dispose  the  vanquished 
nations  to  keep  their  own  company  and 
form  if  possible,  an  economic  system 
of  their  own.  A  prolonged  war,  followed 
by  a  bad  peace,  may  leave  this  indelible 
scar  upon  the  growing  economic  inter- 
nationalism of  the  world. 

The  richly  nourished  patriotism  of 
war  breeds  divisions  and  antagonisms 
which  are  easily  exploited  afterwards  by 
political,  racial,  religious,  and  cultural 
passions,  but  most  of  all  by  economic 
interests. 

Before  the  war  internationalism  was 


52  THE  MORALS  OF 

visibly  advancing  with  every  fresh  dec- 
ade. The  bonds  of  commercial  and 
financial  intercourse  between  the  peoples 
of  different  countries  were  continually 
woven  closer ;  the  policy  of  self-suf- 
ficiency was  continually  giving  way 
before  the  superior  economy  of  speciali- 
zation on  a  basis  of  natural  or  acquired 
advantages.  Any  reversal  of  this  policy 
would  be  far  costlier  than  may  at  present 
appear,  even  for  those  countries  best 
qualified  by  size  and  resources  to  stand 
alone. 

For  it  is  not  merely  the  direct  sacri- 
fice of  the  wider  world  economy  of  pro- 
duction and  exchange,  the  advantage  of 
a  wider  over  a  narrower  area  of  free 
commerce,  that  is  involved.   It  is  the  in- 


INTERNATIONALISM  S3 

direct  perils  and  costs  of  the  policy  of 
close  nationalism  or  restricted  economic 
alliances  that  count  heaviest.  For  eco- 
nomic nationalism  means  protective  and 
discriminative  tariffs,  and  a  conservation 
of  national,  imperial  or  allied  resources 
within  a  circle  of  favored  beneficiaries. 
This  is  the  temptation  held  out  to  the 
British  people  today  by  the  protectionist 
interests  working  upon  the  animosity 
of  the  war  spirit  and  the  sentiment  of 
imperialism.  The  welding  of  an  empire 
into  an  independent  economic  system, 
the  conservation  of  essential  or  key  in- 
dustries and  the  safeguarding  of  our 
industries  against  "dumping,"  are  the 
ostensible  objectives  of  a  policy  whose 
chief  driving  motive  and  end  is  the  es- 


54  THE  MORALS  OF 

tablishment  of  strong  industrial,  com- 
mercial and  financial  trusts  and  combi- 
nations, defended  by  tariff  walls,  and 
endowed  with  the  profits  of  monopoly. 
/There  are  two  difficulties  in  such  a 
course  of  action,  which,  though  espe- 
cially urgent  in  the  case  of  Britain,  beset 
every  great  country  that  chooses  the  same 
path,  and  not  least,  America.  The  first 
is  the  fomentation  of  a  class  war,  based 
upon  divisions  of  interests  between  capi- 
tal and  labor,  producer  and  consumer, 
protected  and  unprotected  industries. 
The  initial  skirmishes  of  such  a  conflict 
are  already  visible  in  every  country  where 
wages,  prices,  and  profiteering  are  burn- 
ing issues.  I  would  most  earnestly  ap- 
peal to  thoughtful  citizens  in  this  as  in 


INTERNATIONALISM  55 

my  own  country  to  pause  before  heap- 
ing fuel  on  these  fires.  For  the  policy 
of  national  self-sufficiency  or  isolation 
means  nothing  less  than  this.  Not  merely 
does  it  strengthen  the  power  of  capi- 
talistic combinations  and  thereby  incite 
labor  unions  to  direct  action,  black- 
mailing demands,  and  sabotage.  Not 
merely  does  it  let  loose  upon  the  busi- 
ness world  all  sorts  of  ill-considered 
governmental  interferences  for  the  fixa- 
tion of  prices  or  subsidies  to  consumers. 
It  keeps  alive  and  feeds  the  habit  and 
the  spirit  of  strife.  For  it  was  no  accident 
that  the  great  international  war  left  as 
its  legacy  smaller  international  class  wars 
in  European  countries.  Remove  from  a 
nation  the  economic  supports  it  formerly 


S6  THE  MORALS  OF 

received  from  other  nations,  markets 
wherein  to  buy  and  sell,  and  you  starve 
that  nation;  and  starvation  breeds  class 
war  and  anarchy.  Can  any  one  doubt 
this  with  the  terrible  examples  of  Russia 
and  Hungary  before  their  eyes  ?f  But  it 
is  not  a  matter  of  war  conditions  alone. 
Carry  through  a  policy  of  economic  na- 
tionalism, under  which  all  the  large  and 
well-equipped  nations  and  empires  con- 
serve for  their  exclusive  uses  the  national 
resources  they  command,  and  what  hap- 
pens ?  The  smaller  and  the  poorer  nations, 
however  free  in  the  political  sense,  be- 
come their  economic  bond  slaves,  at  the 
mercy  of  the  master  states  for  their  foods 
and  other  necessaries  of  life.  Take  the 
case  of  Austria  under  the  new  conditions. 


INTERNATIONALISM  57 

with  a  thick  population  concentrated  in 
a  great  political  capital  suddenly  deprived 
of  all  free  access  to  its  former  sources  of 
supply  and  the  markets  it  used  to  serve. 
For  her  it  is  a  sentence  of  economic 
strangulation.  Here  is  an  extreme  in- 
stance of  the  effect  of  economic  isolation 
on  a  weak  country.  But  the  dangerous 
truth  may  be  more  broadly  stated.  A 
very  few  great  empires  and  nations  to- 
day control  the  whole  available  supplies 
of  many  of  the  foods,  fabrics,  and  metals, 
the  shipping  and  finance,  that  are  es- 
sential to  the  livelihood  and  progress 
of  every  civilized  people.  Are  Britain, 
America,  France,  and  Japan  —  and  espe- 
cially the  two  greatest  of  these  powers — 
going  to  absorb  or  monopolize  for  their 


58  THE  MORALS  OF 

exclusive  purposes  of  trade  or  consump- 
tion these  supplies  which  every  country- 
needs,  or  are  they  going  to  let  the  rest 
of  the  world  have  fair  access  to  them  ?  I 
think  this  to  be  upon  the  whole  the  most 
important  of  the  many  urgent  issues  that 
confront  us.  For,  if  close  nationalism  or 
imperialism  should  prevail,  the  weaker 
placed  nations  could  not  acquiesce. 
Close  economic  nationalism  is  not  for 
them  a  possibility.  They  must  win  ac- 
cess to  the  world's  supplies,  peacefully 
if  possible,  or  else  by  force. 

The  fatality  of  the  great  choice  is 
thus  evident.  Nations  must  and  will 
fight  for  the  means  of  life.  Close  eco- 
nomic nationalism  or  imperialism  on  the 
part  of  the  great   empires  must,  there- 


INTERNATIONALISM  59 

fore,  compel  the  restricted  countries  to 
organize  force  for  their  economic  liber- 
ation. This  in  turn  will  compel  the 
great  empires  to  maintain  strong  mili- 
tary and  naval  defences.  It  is  impossi- 
ble for  the  other  nations  of  the  earth  to 
leave  the  essential  supplies  of  metals, 
foods,  and  oils,  and  the  control  of  trans- 
port in  the  exclusive  possession  of  one 
or  a  few  close  national  corporations  or 
a  permanent  **  Big  Four."  Under  such 
conditions  the  sacrifices  of  the  great  war 
would  have  been  made  in  vain.  Noth- 
ing would  have  been  done  to  end  war, 
or  to  rescue  the  world  from  the  burden 
of  militarism.  The  pre-war  policy  of 
contending  alliances  and  of  competing 
armaments,  draining  more  deeply  than 


6o  THE  MORALS  OF 

ever  the  surplus  incomes  of  each  people, 
would  be  resumed.  And  it  would  bring 
no  sense  of  security,  but  only  the  post- 
ponement of  further  inevitable  conflicts 
in  which  the  very  roots  of  western  civi- 
lization might  perish. 

The  renewed  and  intolerable  burdens 
of  such  a  militarism,  with  its  accom- 
paniments of  autocracy,  must  let  loose 
class  war  in  every  nation  which  has 
gone  through  the  agony  of  the  European 
struggle  and  has  seen  the  great  hope  of 
a  peaceful  internationalism  blighted. 

It  is  predominantly  upon  America  and 
Britain  that  this  great  moral  economic 
choice  rests,  the  choice  on  which  the 
safety  and  the  progress  of  humanity  de- 
pend. A  refusal  by  either  of  these  great 


INTERNATIONALISM  6 1 

powers  can  make  any  league  of  nations 
and  any  economic  internationalism  im- 
possible. The  confident  consent  of  both 
can  furnish  the  material  and  moral  sup- 
port for  the  new  order.  If  these  coun- 
tries in  close  concerted  action  were  pre- 
pared to  place  at  the  service  of  the 
new  world  order  their  exclusive  or  supe- 
rior resources  of  foods,  materials,  trans- 
port and  finance  —  the  economic  pillars 
of  civilization  —  the  stronger  pooling 
their  resources  with  the  weaker  for  the 
rescue  work  in  this  dire  emergency,  this 
political  cooperation  would  supply  that 
mutual  confidence  and  goodwill  with- 
out which  no  governmental  machinery 
of  a  League  of  Nations,  however  skil- 
fully contrived,  can  begin  to  work. 


62  THE  MORALS  OF 

I  have  spoken  of  Britain  and  America 
as  the  two  countries  upon  whose  choice 
this  supreme  issue  hangs.  But  the  act 
of  choice  is  not  the  same  for  the  two. 
The  British  imperial  policy  (apart  from 
that  of  the  self-governing  dominions) 
has  been  conducted  on  a  basis  of  free 
trade  or  economic  internationalism.  A 
reversion  to  close  imperialism  would 
be  for  her  a  retrogression.  The  United 
States,  on  the  other  hand,  has  practised 
a  distinctively  national  economy,  and 
the  adoption  of  a  free  internationalism 
would  be  a  great  act  of  faith,  or  —  as 
some  would  put  it  —  a  leap  in  the  dark. 

I  prefer  the  former  term  as  indicative 
of  the  new  truth  which  is  dawning  on 
the  world,  the  conviction  that  just  as 


INTERNATIONALISM  61, 

an  individual  can  only  fully  realize  his 
pers®nality  in  a  society  of  other  indi- 
viduals, that  is,  a  nation,  so  nations  can- 
not rise  to  the  full  stature  of  nationalism 
save  in  a  society  of  nations.  For  only 
thus  can  nationality,  either  in  its  eco- 
nomic or  its  spiritual  side,  make  full  use 
of  its  special  opportunities  for  the  devel- 
opment of  a  distinctive  national  char- 
acter. The  supreme  challenge  is,  there- 
fore, not  to  the  continental  European 
nations,  not  even  to  Britain,  but  to 
America.  For  her  alone  the  choice  has 
the  full  quality  of  moral  freedom.  For 
she  alone  is  able  to  refuse.  Other  great 
western  nations  might  seek  to  stand  alone 
for  economic  life  and  for  defence.  They 
could   not  long  succeed;  they  are   too 


64  THE  MORALS  OF 

deeply  implicated  in  one  another's  des- 
tinies. Even  Britain  with  her  vast  extra- 
European  territories  could  not  hope  to 
disentangle  herself  from  the  affairs  of 
her  near  neighbors.  America  could  do 
this,  at  any  rate  for  some  considerable 
time  to  come.  True  she  has  economic 
committals  in  Europe.  She  has  loaned 
European  governments  and  peoples  some 
ten  milliards  of  money.  She  is  still  lend- 
ing her  credit  to  support  the  large  sur- 
plus supplies  of  foods  and  other  goods 
she  is  selling  Europe.  If  this  business  is 
to  continue,  it  will  implicate  her  even 
closer  in  European  affairs.  Europe  in  its 
present  case  can  hardly  be  presented  as 
a  safe  business  proposition.  If  America 
proceeds  along  this  path,  it  will  be  be- 


INTERNATIONALISM  6s 

cause  she  looks  beyond  the  immediate 
risks  to  the  wider  future  of  a  safer  and 
more  prosperous  world.  She  could  now 
draw  out;  she  could  cut  the  present  eco- 
nomic losses  of  her  European  loans;  she 
could  divert  her  attention  from  the  Eu- 
ropean markets  to  the  development  of 
the  American  continent  as  the  principal 
area  for  the  disposal  of  her  surplus  goods 
and  energies. 

It  is  open  to  her  to  take  this  course. 
Prudence  may  seem  to  dictate  it.  The 
reckless  mismanagement  of  European 
governments,  the  wild  unsettlement  of 
peoples,  the  badness  of  the  peace,  are, 
indeed,  strong  arguments  for  America 
cleaving  to  her  old  ways. 

Europe  has  no  rightful  claim  upon 


66  THE  MORALS  OF 

America,  either  for  the  urgent  work  of 
economic  rescue,  or  for  participation  in 
the  permanent  project  of  a  society  of 
nations.  America  not  only  has  the  right 
to  refuse;  it  is  probably  to  her  immedi- 
ate interest  to  refuse.  But,  at  the  risk 
of  misinterpretation,  as  an  officious  out- 
sider, I  will  venture  to  present  an  appeal 
to  the  wider  and  deeper  interests  of 
Americans.  The  refusal  of  America  not 
only  shuts  the  gate  of  hope  for  millions 
of  war-broken,  famine-ridden  people  in 
Central  and  Eastern  Europe,  it  removes 
the  keystone  for  the  edifice  of  a  society 
of  nations.  For  effective  international 
cooperation  in  economic  resources  and 
opportunities  is  the  indispensable  condi- 
tion of  such   a  society.   No  League  of 


INTERNATIONALISM  67 

Nations  can  survive  its  infancy  without 
this  economic  nourishment.  The  world's 
weahh  for  the  world's  wants:  unless  this 
maxim  can  in  some  effective  way  be 
realized,  no  such  escape  has  been  made 
from  the  pre-war  policy  of  greed  and 
grab  as  will  furnish  a  reasonable  hope 
for  a  world  redeemed  from  war  —  a 
world  clothed  and  in  its  right  mind. 

Is  it  not  the  larger  and  the  longer 
hope  and  interest  of  America  to  live  as 
a  great  partner  in  such  a  society  of  na- 
tions, rather  than  to  live  a  life  of  iso- 
lated prosperity,  perhaps  the  sole  survivor 
in  the  collapse  of  western  civilized  states  ? 
I  make  this  appeal  in  the  language  of 
Edmund  Burke,  in  his  great  plea  for 
conciliation  with  America,  when  he  re- 


68  THE  MORALS  OF 

minded  his  hearers  that "  Magnanimity  in 
poHtics  is  not  seldom  the  truest  wisdom." 
This,  I  venture  to  say,  is  the  true  appeal 
of  Europe  to  America  today.  Burke's 
words,  I  feel,  must  kindle  conviction  in 
every  generous  heart,  for  in  the  last  re- 
sort it  is  the  desire  of  the  heart  and  not 
the  calculation  of  the  intellect  that  gov- 
erns and  should  govern  human  conduct. 
For  morality  among  nations,  as  among 
individuals,  implies  faith  and  risk-taking, 
not  recklessness,  indeed,  but  dangerous 
living,  a  willingness  and  a  desire  to  take 
a  hand  in  the  largest  game  of  life  and 
continually  to  "pluck  out  of  the  nettle, 
danger,  safety";  but  this  safety  itself 
only  as  a  momentary  resting-place  in  the 
unceasing  urge  of  nations  to  use  their 


INTERNATIONALISM  69 

nationality,  not  for  the  achievement 
of  some  selfish  separate  perfection,  but 
for  the  ever  advancing  realization  of  na- 
tional ends  within  the  wider  circle  of 
humanity. 


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